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It’s one of the most memorable scenes in “Babygirl,” a visual, musical big screen moment that has taken on a life of its own on TikTok: A shirtless Samuel (Harris Dickinson) sensually dances to George Michael’s 1987 “Father Figure” for his older lover Romy (Nicole Kidman), the married CEO at the robotics company where he interns. While on a recent episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, writer/director Halina Reijn broke down the numerous decisions and inspirations that went into creating the scene, including her own experience as an actress stripping on camera and her desire to play with gender roles. As to the choice of the song itself, Reijn explained it was tied to the central question she posed to herself when she sat down to write “Babygirl.”
“For this movie my question was if it would be possible to love and accept all the different layers of myself, so not just the ones that I’m comfortable with showing my friends, or the outside world, but also the ones that I’m embarrassed about, that I’m nervous about, that I feel shame around,” said Reijn. “And for me personally, it’s mainly that I really have this tendency to want to show my vulnerable side in romance and I’m ashamed of that, and this song embodies all of that in a fun, playful, sexy way.”
George Michael’s life itself — coming out as gay in the 1990s and confronting head-on potentially embarrassing aspects of his personal life that became headline fodder for the tabloids — spoke to the film’s themes and was an inspiration for Reijn in making “Babygirl.”
“It’s also about freedom for me,” said Reijn. “George Michael has a very famous song called ‘Freedom,’ but it’s his whole life, and how he slowly dared to become who he really was is very important for my life and a big inspiration.”
What Michael represents for Reijn’s generation, which she includes Romy as being part of, played a part in the choice. As Reijn explained on the podcast, this scene is part of one of the film’s two longer hotel sequences that serve as the film’s two pillars, which were intended to mirror each other. The first cheap hotel room is Samuel’s territory, he rented it, and Romy is on uncertain footing, not even knowing how or where to sit. But the second hotel room, shot at a real-life floor-through suite at an expensive Manhattan hotel, is something Romy paid for, and Reijn imagined Samuel as being akin to Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) in “My Fair Lady” when he’s shocked by its grandeur.
“I wanted these two specific songs, one in the cheap hotel room, INXS’ ‘They Never Tear Us Apart,’ and the one in the luxurious hotel room, George Michael, to be of Nicole’s world,” said Reijn. “I thought that was very important [to be] of my generation. Harris dancing to that song was funny to me and amazing and moving because, of course, he’s younger, so he’s not her father, he’s not the daddy, she’s the daddy, but still he is carrying her around. And to me, why that is so important is because we all have that. We all, men, women, any human being, any person, has a young child inside of them that needs to be taken care of. Whether we are 80 years old or 6 years old, it’s still there. And that is what it taps into for me.”
While on the podcast, Reijn said she thought of the scene as therapy for the characters, as the lovers are helping heal each other’s wounds. In working with Dickinson and Kidman, she had extensive conversations about what the characters are emotionally experiencing so they felt a sense of freedom on set, but within the scenes’ carefully planned blocking — Reijn acted out the scene herself (including Dickinson’s dance) when writing and then with cinematographer Jasper Wolf.
“[When Harris] is dancing, I just told him, ‘Nicole’s gonna sit in a chair just like Mickey Rourke in ‘9 1/2 Weeks,’ and you don’t have to strip, you’re not Kim Basinger in ‘9 1/2 Weeks,’ but I want you to dance and it should be sensual, but I also really want it to be vulnerable. And so whatever you’re feeling, if you’re feeling real nerves, as Harris, just use them. It’s okay. It’s all okay,’” said Reijn. The director’s decades of acting experience meant she felt like she knew what Kidman and Dickinson needed in these intimate scenes, but it also was, in part, an inspiration for the scene itself. “How many times did I do a striptease in so many movies that I acted in? On stage, it’s almost been 99 percent of the time I’m taking my clothes off in any play that I did, so, of course, I’m also playing with gender roles, swapping them in a light way, and hoping that people, while they’re watching, are thinking about all of these things and having fun with it.”
Reijn also talked about how the film was as much about two different generations, as it was about gender, and she’s been pleasantly surprised how the scene has taken on a life of its own on social media.
“This whole ‘Father Figure’ thing becoming now this viral thing and everybody’s dancing on TikTok, and wives are forcing their husbands to dance on it, I love it,” said Reijn. “I think it’s just a great way to be in touch with these kinds of subjects, to talk about them and to talk about it, our honest vulnerability, and that is something that I think is very important in life.”
To hear Reijn’s full Toolkit interview, subscribe to the Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch the full interview below, or subscribe to IndieWire’s YouTube page.
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